Living Corpse wrote:We lose our innocence at some point when we grow up.
I wanna see a Gamera film tackle this, where an innocent child he saved in the past grows up into a villain he has to stop.
Reminds me a bit of Syndrome
Maybe he's so in awe by Gamera's power and majestic nature he pursues science when he grows up, over the years he grows unhappy with how things are falling apart in his society (maybe he lives in an unstable region with a lot of conflict) and rather than abandon it and move somewhere else he wants to save it but first he has to overthrow the current government. He gets involved in weapons manufacturing or maybe bio-science, and seeks to emulate Gamera's power, a weapon just as powerful as the giant turtle monster.
He (or she) could be a villain that you are totally against but at the same time completely understand their motivation. It's not evil for the sake of evil, it's someone who feels they have to commit a horrible act for the greater good of his part of the world.
Living Corpse wrote:We lose our innocence at some point when we grow up.
I wanna see a Gamera film tackle this, where an innocent child he saved in the past grows up into a villain he has to stop.
Didn't this sorta-kinda happen with Ayana? And Gamera still saved her.
Not really? She was there when Gamera fought the Super Gyaos and witness her parents die in the fight but he didn't really save her specifically from danger. Plus she was already a teenager, hardly what I'd call a little kid. And she didn't seem to have any positive thoughts about him or even be in awe till after the events of G3.
I would love to see Toshiro from the first Gamera film return as a deranged lunatic trying to clone Gamera.
Kaiju-King42 wrote:
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Ivo-goji wrote:I would love to see Toshiro from the first Gamera film return as a deranged lunatic trying to clone Gamera.
Oh god, and the result turns into this Shin Godzilla looking abomination.
A guy who randomly stumbled upon this place one day, invested much too much time into it, and now appears to be stuck here for all eternity..and strangely enough, i do not regret it!
It's a toss up between him successfully creating an enemy that Gamera fights or just having him be this delusional man with hoards of turtles in his house that thinks he can make them grow into a giant monster.
Like Gamera and other kaiju are real but we don't know what they're actually doing, everything is just filtered through Toshiro's warped perception of events.
Kaiju-King42 wrote:
Welcome to Toho Kingdom, where every conceivable opinion, no matter how outlandish or unpopular, is a possibility among the population.
miguelnuva wrote:
Makes sense, with his fire being internal it could hit higher temperatures then what he attacks with.
Hmm, less explosive but much hotter. All the more reason for Iris to be pissed.
Speaking of, I get they they went with an air fight because they originally wanted a water battle but ROM2 did it the year before, but I think it was a missed opportunity to start under the ocean and transition into the sky the sky battle we got.
Yeah I would have loved water to air or air water air. But if it had to be just one then air easily. I mean he flies we should see him do more air battles than water battles.
So. I saw the Heisei Trilogy back in the 'rent the VHS from Blockbuster' days, and had the DVD Trilogy set as a kid. I really liked those films as a kid....but haven't seen them at all in over 10 years.
I pre-ordered the Gamera Box Set purely out of love for that trilogy and because the set itself seems so awesome...and because I've never actually spent a dime collecting these movies and it seemed like the perfect time to go all-in.
I've noticed that a lot of the US versions of these movies are on YouTube, in a sort of 'public domain/copyright not being enforced at all' kind of situation. They are all in full-frame, and in poor VHS-tier audio/video quality. I was originally going to hold out so that the first time I watched these movies was when I finally got the set, but I couldn't resist.
I watched Gammera The Invincible, Gamera vs Barugon, Gamera vs Gyaos and Gamera vs Guiron(I accidentally skipped Viras) so far.
I have to say....I find something supremely enjoyable about these movies. There is something sort of...sincere about the tone they strike and their execution despite being cheap and cheesy and clearly for children. Like, there are no delusions or pretentiousness here. I would call it schlock, but to me that always feels like it applies more o something like Sharknado. Something that is a bit more cynical and trying to be 'in on the joke', while these movies just feel like they are trying to earnestly be what they are(B-grade "easy" fair) but also do a good job at it. Sharknado feels like it has a "lets all try to make it stupid and bad and lean into that because that is the joke"
I don't know.
Also....I find the dubbing very charming and appealing in that old school kind of way. It sort of feels exactly like old school sci-fi B-movies type of dialogue, exposition, and speech patterns. When newscasters and scientists or military brass start going on about the monsters and their traits and how to fight them....to me it is just ear candy. With movies from different eras, the WAY they speak really helps create that tone and reality of the movies of the era....and when you aren't watching in English you can't really appreciate that kind of difference of inflection/dialogue.
I also love the very bloody and violent nature of all of the Kaiju fights as well.
Basically, I'm having a LOT of fun with the absurdity of the Showa Gamera films so far.
"I'm saying a prayer, George. A prayer for the whole world."
miguelnuva wrote:
Makes sense, with his fire being internal it could hit higher temperatures then what he attacks with.
Hmm, less explosive but much hotter. All the more reason for Iris to be pissed.
Speaking of, I get they they went with an air fight because they originally wanted a water battle but ROM2 did it the year before, but I think it was a missed opportunity to start under the ocean and transition into the sky the sky battle we got.
Yeah they wanted each film to have a different feel - G1 is literally subtitled 'giant monster midair battle', G2 has more ground-level military battles with human involved, and G3 was supposed to have that underwater battle (while still operating like a high-speed aerial fight), but like Corpse said Higuchi changed his mind after seeing Rebirth of Mothra II.
I enjoyed the original, Barugon, Gyaos and Guiron the most. Viras, Jiger, and Zigra certainly less so.
Super Monster...holy crap. Not to hate on it, but I can barely consider this a movie. This is a glorified clip show to an even greater degree than All Monsters Attack. Like, a trippy weird movie. Strike this one from the canon....I can't consider this one as 'part of the series' in the same way when it is a total nonsense stock footage movie.
But it was certainly enjoyable in how utterly ridiculous it was...so that was fine.
What I love most is how incredibly simple and easy these movies are. I LOVE that there aren't nearly as many films to watch as there are Godzilla films. The fact that there are so few and so many of them are on the shorter side(almost all of them under 90 minutes) helps make them all that much more palatable. Blasting through them all in a few days was a pretty easy undertaking.
It is nice that the Gamera franchise is comparatively so compact and easily defined. The original sequence of cheap children's films, the one-off abomination, the fantastic 90s trilogy, and the(from what I read) really good family film.
Gamera The Brave will be the last one I watch, and that one will likely have to wait until I get the Box Set.
Having seen all of these in full-frame and frankly TERRIBLD VHS visual/audio quality....really sub-par....seeing them in the Box Set will probably be a borderline fresh experience, and I'm sure it will be MUCH more aesthetically pleasing to get them in widescreen HD with better audio. So I'm looking forward to REALLY enjoying these movies properly.
But blasting through them was a lot of fun.
"I'm saying a prayer, George. A prayer for the whole world."
What? Jiger was like the last good gasp of Showa Gamera. Zigra went downhill and then of course Super Monster. Jiger needs more love. I like the Gurion movie since it was pretty weird. Viras is boring and I'm just not super in love with Gamera vs. Gyaos like a lot of people are.
Barugon is great and a big improvement over the first Gamera movie.
